Tuned In
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My column in the print issue of TIME this week looks at the success of the revival of The Game on BET, and how it suggests that the unfortunately-conventional wisdom of TV may be wrong: it may actually be good business to produce TV series featuring largely-minority casts, of the kind that …
Tuned In
My column in the print edition of TIME this week celebrates Friday Night Lights, which airs its series finale on DirecTV next week. (The column went to press before NBC announced that it will begin airing the last season April 15—though a DVD of the full season will be available ten days earlier.)
I wanted to keep the column …
Tuned InUncategorized
My column in this week’s TIME looks at The Onion’s effort to translate its Web, print and online-video empire to TV with Onion News Network on IFC channel (as well as Onion SportsDome on Comedy Central):
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both personality-driven; Stewart is our exasperated guide through the excesses of hype and
…
Tuned In
In the new issue of TIME, I review MTV’s American remake of raunchy teen dramedy Skins, which debuts Monday. Like the British series it adapts—too directly at first, its biggest flaw—it’s bluntly risqué and showily amoral when it comes to sex and drugs; it will keep the Parents Television Council good and busy for a while. It …
Tuned In
My latest column in the print TIME magazine, is a bit of a what-I-did-on-my-winter-vacation essay: trying to figure out how or if I could drive home from Michigan to poorly-plowed Brooklyn after the blizzard, I turned to Twitter to get extreme micronews about the block-by-block situation on the ground. My conclusion? The old insult …
Tuned InUncategorized
I was on vacation last week. But thanks to the magic of publishing—and the magic of working double-time before vacation—I had a story in TIME anyway! I previewed Oprah Winfrey’s just-launched OWN network, which essentially atomizes the themes and content of The Oprah Winfrey Show across a 24-hour cable lineup:
A successful,
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Tuned InNews Media
The special issue of TIME now on newsstands, Time Frames, is a look back at, and update on, some of the signal events and developments over the past 10 years. The editor of the issue, Nancy Gibbs, asked me if I was interested in doing a Tuned In column about a particular TV event or show that captured the spirit of the decade. After …
Tuned In
The midterms are over, which means that department stores are taking down their Halloween pumpkins and putting up their Election 2012 decorations. And in that spirit I give you, online in advance of its appearance in the print TIME magazine, my early review of the TLC reality show Sarah Palin’s Alaska. (With a spiffy picture gallery to …
Tuned In
In the print edition of TIME this week comes, lurching and moaning, my review of AMC’s new zombie drama, The Walking Dead. I liked it—with qualifications.
Tuned In
Is Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear a political event? NPR—which is currently having its own problems defining the limits of public commentary with its Juan Williams scandal—says so, having forbidden its reporters to attend the event. In an essay in this week’s print TIME (not yet available …
Tuned InUncategorized
I’ve been writing a lot in this space lately about the disappointing fall broadcast lineup, and how the networks have all but given up launching challenging shows (particularly dramas), turning that job over to cable. (It’s worth noting, by the way, that however badly Lone Star flamed out, even the most successful of the network’s …
Tuned In
In my TIME print-edition column this week (not yet available online), I take a look at pop culture and the public school crisis. Besides Davis Guggenheim’s excellent documentary Waiting for “Superman,” the column covers two Friday reality shows that take very different approaches to public school ills: NBC’s School Pride, which …
Tuned In
My review of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, premiering Sunday night, is in the new print TIME. (There’s also a bonus Web exclusive of pretty pictures from the set.) We went with the same “Jersey Shore” headline as did the New York Times, Newsweek, and, I am guessing, your cousin’s blog. I am not proud of this.
As long as we’re doing obvious …
